The present invention refers to a grooving insert, more specifically a face grooving insert, according to the preamble of claim 1. In other words, the present invention refers to a grooving insert comprising a front surface and an opposite rear surface, a first side surface and an opposite second side surface, a top surface and an opposite bottom surface. The top surface comprising a top front portion and a top rear portion, the top front portion comprising a rake face and a cutting edge. The cutting edge is at least partly formed in an intersection between the rake face and the front surface. The cutting edge extends continuously or substantially continuously between a first end point and a second end point. The cutting edge is arranged symmetrically or substantially symmetrically relative to a first plane. The first plane intersects a mid-point of the cutting edge and intersects the rear surface. The top rear portion comprising a top support surface. The bottom surface comprising a bottom support surface. The bottom surface is symmetrically or substantially symmetrically arranged in relation to a second plane. The second plane intersects the front surface and the rear surface.
Such a grooving insert is known from JP 2013-166189 A.
A face grooving insert can be used to produce, by metal cutting, a circular groove in a rotating metal work piece. The circular groove produced has a center which coincides with a rotational axis of the metal work piece. A primary cutting feed direction of the face grooving tool body is parallel to the rotational axis of the metal work piece.
During use, the face grooving insert is mounted in an insert seat of a face grooving tool body.
For circular grooves having a depth which is greater than the length of the face grooving insert, the face grooving tool body has a shape which allows face grooving in a primary feed direction, parallel to a rotation axis of a metal work piece, without interference or damage. This is normally achieved by providing the face grooving tool body with a blade portion which is curved around one or more axes of curvature, which axes are parallel to the primary feed direction.
For narrow and deep circular grooves, it is advantageous with a clamping mechanism of the grooving insert which works according to the principle that the insert seat can be opened by a movement, such as a rotation, of a key, which forces an upper and lower clamping jaw away from each other. When the key is not present, the insert is clamped by the upper and lower clamping jaws. The upper clamping jaw is therefore elastically deformable, or resiliently moveable. Such a clamping mechanism is known as spring clamping.
Alternatively, a so called screw clamping mechanism can be used. In such a face grooving tool body, a clamping screw is rotated which forces an upper clamping jaw against an upper clamping surface of a face grooving insert. Such a mechanism is less effective for deep grooves, because as the distance from the clamping screw to the active cutting edge is increased, the necessary torque for the clamping screw in order to achieve sufficient insert clamping is increased.
The face grooving insert known from JP 2013-166189 comprises a top surface comprising a top clamping surface which is V-shaped in cross section. A central groove extends symmetrically to a longitudinal axis of the insert, separating two equally large surfaces. The bottom surface comprises a bottom support surface arranged in a corresponding manner. The top clamping surface and the bottom support surface of the face grooving insert corresponds to a shape of the insert seat of the face grooving tool body, in which the face grooving insert is mounted. The face grooving insert is mounted horizontally in the insert seat in side view, i.e. such that the top and bottom surfaces extend parallel to a primary cutting feed direction.